North Vancouver Family Lawyer Helps Couples and Families Through Divorce

Kevin Lynch of B & L Real Estate Group and Founder of iVancouverNow interviews talented local Divorce Lawyer, Amalia Schon.

North Vancouver Divorce and Family Law I interviewed Divorce and Family Lawyer, Amalia Schon from North Vancouver about how she has a better approach to helping couples and families go through divorce. Her approach very interesting and I think you will find this interview informative, helpful and potentially enlightening. Watch the full video for all the great insights and reach. If you need a family lawyer to help with the mediation process and are looking for a North Vancouver lawyer that actually respects the importance of finding an amicable solution, Amalia can help. Her business is located in Lower Lonsdale, North Vancouver. One of the challenges that comes up through divorce is the need for housings and valuation of the home or real estate properties.

Kevin Lynch is well versed in helping you understand the current real estate market, accurate pricing and values for your home or real estate holdings and knows how to work with couples and family to buy or sell.

Kevin Lynch

B & L Real Estate Group

CEO, Co-Founder 604.307.9448

Below is the full transcript of the interview.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

Thank you for joining us and maybe shedding a little bit of light on how you operate what you do the impacts you can have on people's lives um you know this is a very sensitive topic for many people you know as they're going through this type of stuff so maybe you could share a little bit about your storyline and how you kind of started out and how you got into doing what you're doing.

Amalia Schon

Absolutely, so I started practicing family law in a litigation firm downtown quickly realized that the litigious adversarial approach wasn't for me I don't find it works well with my personality and my values and so I was working in this large boutique of family lawyers and really trying to avoid the litigation work and ended up just taking the files that wanted or that were alternative dispute resolution files so files that were amenable to negotiation and mediation and passing on the litigation files to my colleagues and ended up uh developing a niche uh for myself uh and ended up doing my mediation training and my collaborative law training as well and so that's how I got into out of court resolution so I don't do any litigation my practice is focused on like i said uh alternative dispute resolution processes so uh mediation I am a mediator so I can mediate with couples and I also attend at mediations as a lawyer, so with a third party mediator and I represent my client at mediations and also through negotiations; we resolve files so that would each party has a lawyer and we send offers back and forth and resolve things that way and then also collaborative law which is my preferred practice area which is a formal type of alternative dispute resolution process um and the most uh defining feature is that uh so both lawyers have to be collaboratively trained okay and um and then all parties uh so both spouses and their lawyers must sign a contract called the participation agreement which is a formal legally binding contract whereby everyone agrees to stay out of court within the process that's the most defining feature.

If either party wants to go to court at any point they each must retain a new lawyer so there's a big disincentive to go to court. It's based on good faith negotiations full disclosure respectful communication, all of that , it's interest based.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

Wow sounds like a very refreshing kind of niche and angle I honestly haven't heard of this before you see all the movies of you know War Of The Roses and people going through their own personal nightmares um and then just kind of trying to chop the other people off at the knees and this is obviously very different.

Amalia Schon

Yeah that's a good question. I’d say like the typical would be from six to eighteen months. so it ranges okay so this isn't no short-term fix, it's a process of helping people to come to a way of life that's different than what they've got and that takes time to negotiate is that kind of the premise behind it is that uh well yeah I mean things take time right.

I mean you're usually you know if it was a collaborative file for example you were dealing with um four different people at least. in the collaborative file we also have sometimes financial neutrals that that we can enlist for financial issues so they're also collaboratively trained uh or mental health professionals um in their divorce coaches or child specialists which we bring in to assist with um co-parenting matters and child issues so sometimes there's more than four people and so you know there's scheduling there's you know all the different um, you know issues that have to be addressed.

I mean a typical family um, family law case that has all of the issues would have parenting issues child support issues spousal support issues property and debt division issues so and then finally divorce so there's four substantive issues that need to be dealt with um and you know there's I mean usually what one person puts forward is there you know their first offer or you know suggestion is not going to be accepted and there's going to be um you know a fair amount of back and forth and discussions over time right so it's a true negotiation helping.

In negotiation of life I mean everything's negotiable and this is no different obviously right so yeah and then you have that you know emotions that are you know not usually present in you know like a commercial negotiation rate so those are often um add another layer of complexity and usually protract the process too because you know when particularly when someone's hurt they may be less willing to you know agree even if something's reasonable. Well you know so and is not you know infrequently the case where you know one person has left the relationship and the other person's upset that that person left the relationship and they you know create roadblocks to try to resolution right and that's why the variance in time from six to 18 months in general.

I mean if there are um you know the trickiest issue in a spousal in a family law matter would be spousal support. That's usually the most contentious because no one wants to pay their ex any money if you frame it as is money for your child it may be a little bit more tolerable.

Not necessarily, but often times, so you know for example if people have similar incomes and spousal support is not going to be negotiated then and if they have a fairly simple you know asset and asset scenario then you know it could be fairly quick or if they don't have any kids right but if there's you know um complexity like numerous properties companies, like a traditional relationship where the male works and the female stays home and the male maybe is a higher income earner and so there's issues of what support is going to be paid for how long, how is it going to be paid you know and those are the issues that end up getting sticky.

And then you might need to value a company you might need to get an income report to determine exactly what someone's income is if let's say they're a controller of a company so it can get complicated.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

It sounds that way. Hence the lengthy training that you have to go through and the constant upgrading of um you know policies procedures I guess you know and governmental restrictions or changes or what not.

Amalia SchonYeah

Absolutely. It's a constant process of learning and you know experiencing right and seeing what works and what doesn't and yeah it's a constant learning process for sure.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch So now how long have you been doing this?

Amalia Schon

I’ve been a lawyer for eight years and been practicing family law for six.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

Do you handle multiple clients at a time?

Amalia Schon

Oh yeah okay, yeah I don't know, multiple definitely multiple I mean, I don't know how many active files I have but okay there's a lot. Yes definitely in the multiples of tens.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

I’m just coming completely ignorant. What percentage of the clients that you work with are actually families or have children?

Amalia Schon

I’d say most. oh okay yeah I’d say most do I’d say probably make sense you get married you end up having families right, so yeah, I’d say probably 80%.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

Okay yeah, is there anything interesting or any questions that like when people come in to meet you the first time, what are some questions our audience should know to be prepared for if they're going to have a conversation with you?

Amalia SchonWell

I think it's important to have an understanding if uh you know of when the separation occurred because often times that's a difficult or contentious issue you know because living together doesn't necessarily mean you're still together and physical separation doesn't necessarily mean you separated. And having you know an understanding of finances and what your incomes are respective incomes are and you know the general goals in mind and your ideas for the type of process that you're looking for so basically come in with you know some baseline elements so that you can actually have an intelligent conversation about what's next from there. Yeah so my initial consultation is 15 minutes and that's a free consult so it's pretty short but it's more meant for me to make sure that it's a good fit and to get like a just a brief background of the issues and if a client chooses to retain me .Then I do have some detailed intake forms that like standard forms that I send out that garner the required information so that I can get a bit more knowledge and be in a position to provide advice.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

Nice. Well thank you for sharing your wisdom and your insight. I’m sure anyone that's going through this certainly would do well to have someone like you in their corner and then helping them. Not to go through you know, a hellish process but somebody that I could see would make the process a lot more simplified um and we're not going to say enjoyable but take out some of the pain right?

Amalia Schon

Absolutely, I mean it's never going to be a fun process um but it's can be less painful and it can be less traumatic. Yeah and I also would say that for those as well and we didn't get a chance to discuss this but just briefly about those entering into relationships, um it's becoming more common practice to have cohabitation agreements and marriage agreements sort of, uh commonly known as you know prenups, and that's becoming more popular as well. And that can prevent some of this on the back end if things don't work out and luckily people are turning their mind to it more and I’ve sort of thought you know recently that basic family law should be like a grade 12 course so that everyone really understands what they're getting into in relationships because there's a you know if people knew they'd probably structure things differently and you know there's only so much you can do if you're going to have a long-term traditional relationship with kids I mean you can't totally contract out I mean you can try but um but you know there are certain things that you can you can contemplate and plan for. I do see people on the other end as well at the beginning of relationships.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

Right so, you're there helping people that maybe unfortunately maybe they've gone through it and it's the second round for them, the hard way.

Amalia Schon

That’s often the case yeah. They’ve been through it before and they don't want to go through it again so that's fairly often the case.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

Right that makes a lot of sense. Those new first loves, uh you know, are all starry-eyed and can't even envision that there'd be any pain down the road. the second round, you're like okay wait, I just got some smack down just had a tough situation and now we're coming back at it and you know I’m not giving up on love that's for sure, uh but maybe I need to take care of some stuff in case I’m wrong.

Amalia Schon

Absolutely, well and you know you would never enter into a business arrangement without you know a contract that you know set out certain terms under which you were going to engage in business and you know a relationship with someone is essentially you know it's a business transaction tutoring there's finances involved there's you know a great deal of time and trust, so I mean, you know you have to but you it's, I think wise to make sure that everyone is on the same page and you know if there are certain things you need to or you would like to make sure that are factored into an agreement in terms of finances and it's a wise thing to do.

iVancouverNow – Kevin Lynch

Well wonderful. I thank you for your insights and we'll make sure that we uh get this information out uh to to my audience and if anybody does need some help and support we'll include your contact information as well you know and hopefully you can help some people going through some challenges, to navigate a better way. I like the business model, which is why I kind of reached out I thought this is interesting this seems different than what I’m aware of um but you know it's been a long time since I’ve heard anything about you know these types of processes except that you hear.

Amalia Schon

You know divorce is still sky high the percentile yeah especially Covid has definitely I think done a number on families.

If you are going through the divorce process and need help understanding the value of your home, or other real estate assets, I offer free asset review.

Kevin Lynch

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